“He could not hafe helt on,” replied the Baron quietly.

Jacques Falleix had done them immense service in stock-jobbing.  During a crisis a few months since he had saved the situation by acting boldly.  But to look for gratitude from a money-dealer is as vain as to try to touch the heart of the wolves of the Ukraine in winter.

“Poor fellow!” said the stockbroker.  “He so little anticipated such a catastrophe, that he had furnished a little house for his mistress in the Rue Saint-Georges; he has spent one hundred and fifty thousand francs in decorations and furniture.  He was so devoted to Madame du Val-Noble!  The poor woman must give it all up.  And nothing is paid for.”

“Goot, goot!” thought Nucingen, “dis is de very chance to make up for vat I hafe lost dis night!—­He hafe paid for noting?” he asked his informant.

“Why,” said the stockbroker, “where would you find a tradesman so ill informed as to refuse credit to Jacques Falleix?  There is a splendid cellar of wine, it would seem.  By the way, the house is for sale; he meant to buy it.  The lease is in his name.—­What a piece of folly!  Plate, furniture, wine, carriage-horses, everything will be valued in a lump, and what will the creditors get out of it?”

“Come again to-morrow,” said Nucingen.  “I shall hafe seen all dat; and if it is not a declared bankruptcy, if tings can be arranged and compromised, I shall tell you to offer some reasonaple price for dat furniture, if I shall buy de lease——­”

“That can be managed,” said his friend.  “If you go there this morning, you will find one of Falleix’s partners there with the tradespeople, who want to establish a first claim; but la Val-Noble has their accounts made out to Falleix.”

The Baron sent off one of his clerks forthwith to his lawyer.  Jacques Falleix had spoken to him about this house, which was worth sixty thousand francs at most, and he wished to be put in possession of it at once, so as to avail himself of the privileges of the householder.

The cashier, honest man, came to inquire whether his master had lost anything by Falleix’s bankruptcy.

“On de contrar’ mein goot Volfgang, I stant to vin ein hundert tousant francs.”

“How vas dat?”

“Vell, I shall hafe de little house vat dat poor Teufel Falleix should furnish for his mis’ess this year.  I shall hafe all dat for fifty tousant franc to de creditors; and my notary, Maitre Cardot, shall hafe my orders to buy de house, for de lan’lord vant de money—­I knew dat, but I hat lost mein head.  Ver’ soon my difine Esther shall life in a little palace. . . .  I hafe been dere mit Falleix—­it is close to here.—­It shall fit me like a glofe.”

Falleix’s failure required the Baron’s presence at the Bourse; but he could not bear to leave his house in the Rue Saint-Lazare without going to the Rue Taitbout; he was already miserable at having been away from Esther for so many hours.  He would have liked to keep her at his elbow.  The profits he hoped to make out of his stockbrokers’ plunder made the former loss of four hundred thousand francs quite easy to endure.